Making Your Website Work

Tracking Web statistics

Design a website that gets visitors to take action. See if visitors are actually reaching the desired goal. Today, website ROI is measured by conversions - how frequently visitors reach your goals. No marketing campaign is complete without measuring the effects of online marketing.

A number of small businesses spend a considerable time and effort in building websites and a lot of spend goes in marketing the site but almost no time or effort is spent in measuring the marketing campaign performance. Monitoring and studying your website traffic lets you know what campaigns are working and helps you understand where the efforts need to be eased and where they need to be concentrated.

A good web-monitoring tool will give a fair idea of the existing gaps between the marketing campaign and results. You will get a good understanding of where your traffic is coming from and might be surprised to see some filtering from unlikely sources.

If you have launched a new service – a newsletter, signup or are offering a free product – track sources and the path traveled to see if these are working or not. If users are leaving the goal path mid way then make changes to tune the path for better conversions.

Some of the areas that you can track on most web analytics are:

Tracking pages

Check the pages that are most frequented by users and those that are not. If visitors are not surfing to the page you want them to see, make better links. Look at the entry and exit pages. See the pages that get hit the most? Which ones draw the least web traffic? Which pages are bookmarked, as bookmarked pages tend to draw traffic directly?

Entry pages are those from where the visitor entered your site. This can be from a search engine, an affiliate, or a link from a post or forum or a referring site. If a visitor came in from a search query and left immediately, it is obvious they didn’t find what they were looking for. If this happens examine the keywords that bring in the search. Do they tally with your offering?

If your visitors consistently exit just before clicking on the ‘Buy’ button, you may have a pricing problem. Visit your competition and have a look. Try to add fresh offers and discounts. Once again reassess your key words.

Track the time spent on a page and the site. More time spent means information offered is relevant and of interest.

Top landing pages

This report will show you how many visitors reach your landing page and the path taken from there. It is a good measure of assessing how many visitors is the site loosing from each landing page. Visitors leaving the site after viewing just a single page increase the "bounce rate" for the entrance page. Your attempt should be to reduce the number of "bounces" on a page where the visitors are landing. Too many bounces" may mean that the page needs tweaking. If a large number of visitors are leaving the site instantly (higher bounce rate) it would mean a lower conversion rate. If you have made changes, study the trend over a period of time to know if the changes you are making are for the better.

Traffic Sources

Check the web stats for traffic coming form Search Engines, the number of Searches, total Searches, Keywords and phrases. Examining the total Searches gives you an idea on how well your marketing efforts are paying off. Higher searches translate to higher hits - check to see that there is no downward shift on the total searches. If this happens re-look your keywords.

Check other sources that are sending traffic to your site - referrals. Referrals are links form other websites to your site. These could include affiliates, ads etc.

Visitor Tracking

This would be the most important area of stats monitoring. Identifying unique visitors, distinguishing unique and returning visitors helps you determine how effective you are in getting new visitors, and how well you retain them. If the site shows an increase in the number of pages viewed per visitor it could mean that potential customers to the site are finding more relevant content – hence tend to “stick” longer on the site. If page views start to increase then you are on track and this should result in an increase in sales. A fall in the duration of time spent on your site is early indicator of falling interest.

Site Overlay

Site overlay indicates the areas on the entrance page that are being clicked on. You can follow the click path to see where the visitors are clicking to reach the goal. Check for the conversion percentage: how frequently visitors who click there convert to each of your goals.

Define Goals

All goals are not sales. A goal is would be a desired action performed by the visitor when browsing through the site. These would be those desired actions taken by visitors - that add to the success of your business. A signup, filling a contact form or any other connecting point that takes the visitor to the final action can also be defined as a goal. Different goals can be assigned to study different metrics.

Funnels

Funnels defined within goals help identify the areas where visitors are abandoning the path. This let’s you track where you are losing visitors on the path to conversion. You can chalk out the path that you expect the visitors to take and track where on the path are you losing the visitors. Further for exits you can also trace the path of funnel exits as well as funnel entries. This helps you identify the key areas that need tweaking - too much abandonment from the path may mean re-looking at the path defined for users - this may be due to too many clicks to reach the end, unclear instructions, too many options etc.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the process of measuring your performance against the better performing sites within your industry. Benchmarking within your industry is essential to the success of your business. Boosts and dips in traffic within specified days, time etc in comparison to other sites in the industry would give you a meaningful insight into your website stats. However benchmarking only works if you are willing to share data.

Google analytics allows you to be able to compare your site's Visits, Page views, Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and New Visits data against benchmark data from categories of other participating websites. You can use this data to identify additional opportunities to improve your site's metrics.

There are a number of options for website statistics measurement. Some of the free popular webs tracking tools are:

Google Analytics

www.google.com/analytics: Google analytics allows you to track traffic sources, visitor stats, Keyword and Campaign Comparison, Custom Dashboards, integrate adwords
, tv and audio campaigns, Benchmarking, Funnel Visualization, site overlay etc.

StatCounter

www.statcounter.com: Offers both paid and unpaid services. Some of the features offered include ccnfigurable Summary Stats, Magnify User, Drill Down, Popular Pages, Entry Pages, Exit Pages, Came From, Keyword Analysis, Recent Keyword Activity, Search Engine Wars, Visitor Paths, Visit Length, Returning Visits, Recent Pageload Activity, Recent Visitor Activity, Country/State/City Stats, Recent Visitor Google Map, ISP Stats, Browser Stats, O.S. Stats, Resolution Stats, JavaScript Stats etc.

Gostats

www.gostats.com:Gostats gives detailed information on page statistics, visitor statistics, link statistics, System stats.

Onestatfree

www.onestatfree.com: with the OneStat Free tracker you can easily check the number of visitors and page views, visitor profile, popular pages on the site, traffic sources, browser stats, daily stats, site comparison etc.

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Make Money Online listen

If you can't find a way to focus your efforts, you will not make money online. Plain and simple; believe me, if you've been seeking to making money online.

When I first got into the "make money online" field, I couldn't get focused. I was listening to this guy, that guy, another guy, every guy and got information overload and didn't take action.

I wasn't able to pick a project and stay focused and finish it. I would read an e-book or take some information from someone and try to put that information in use to make money for myself online.

Some of them had great information and I could make money from the information when I started that project. The problem was that I would never finish a project. I was always searching for something better. I was always looking for the next big thing. I was looking for something that didn't exist. I was looking for something that didn't require hardly any work and was going to make me a millionaire overnight.

There is no product that is going to do this for you!

I had the information in my hands to make a handsome living online. I just wasn't using it. I wasn't staying focused on a project long enough to see any returns.

I was lied to, like most people who get into the making money online field. We are told by people who want to sell their products to us, that we will make a million dollars overnight and don't have to do much work. Guess what, you won't make that kind of money overnight and it does take some work.

What you should do is pick out some projects and finish them.

Once you start finishing your projects, whatever they may be, creating a product, building a website, writing sales copy, writing articles, etc., the money will start coming in.

I always say that the toughest dollar to make online is the first one. There are so many people that don't make any money online and give up and go back to their day job.

The first dollar was definitely the toughest for me to make. I think it gets easier because once you have made some money online, you have broken down that first very important barrier down, it gets a lot easier.

You realize that you really can make money online and your confidence soars! You can just keep on doing what you were doing to make more money. Work harder and expand your business. Repeat what you're doing to make money and just keep expanding on that process and keep working on ways to improve your business.

Focus and hard work is going to get you a long way in life.

Using focus and hard work to make money online are the two major keys to success and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. As you focus a "funnel" will be created to drive traffic, conversion of that traffic and ultimately sales. Focus and hard work are equivalent terms in reaching your objective. The one promise I can make, because I've experienced it, is if you will focus your efforts with your hard work you will achieve your desires!

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Finding Content for Blogging

Know to find contents for your blog

Blogging can be an incredibly rewarding activity. Some people start a blog to promote a business. Other people start a blog because they simply like the idea of having their own website and a blog is the easiest kind of website to start. Others blog because they have an agenda that they want to promote. Still others start blogs because they want to educate people about certain issues. Whatever your reason for blogging, there is one thing that all bloggers can agree on: finding content can be a big pain in the…you-know-where.

When you start blogging thinking of blog post topics will be easy. This is largely due to your level of enthusiasm over your new site. Most bloggers will write a few posts a day when they start out. As time goes on, however, finding things to blog about becomes more difficult. It is not unlike looking across the table at your husband and realizing that the funny story you were about to tell him is the same funny story you've told him fifty times and is probably bored with it.

So what do you do?

The first place we go when we need to find blogging content is the news. We look at headlines in our local area first to see if anything piques our interest. Sometimes an article or a topic will jump out at us and give us enough ideas that we'll have a few days worth of content for our blogs. Sometimes it is just a passing fancy that we mention only once. If no local news seems fitting for our blog (this will depend largely on your blog's niche), then we move on to national news and then world news.

If we don't find any current events to write about, the next place we look when we need help with blogging is our own entertainment cache. What have we been playing with lately? What books are we reading? Did we just see a movie that we can write about? Remember, blogging is about sharing opinions. Your readers want to know what you think about something even if it is just about a television show that was on last night.

If we still can't think of any blogging material, we call our friends. Sometimes having a conversation with a friend will remind us of a topic we wanted to cover. Sometimes we'll have such a great conversation that the conversation itself will become the topic of our blog post. Sometimes our friends will alert us to something that we think would work well for content.

Sometimes, in lieu of blogging original words, we'll start blogging original visuals. Blogs are a great place to display photos from your recent vacation (you've probably been meaning to post them anyway) or a quick sketch you did. If you draw cartoons, your blog is a great method of distributing those cartoons to the public!

Finally, if all else fails you can always write a blog post about having nothing to blog about. It probably isn't a good idea to do this too often, though!

For more information on blogging, visit http://www.microbloggingsites.com and http://www.microbloggingtool.com.

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what is blogging and its benefits

What is a Blog?

The word is a loose contraction of the term, "Web Log." A blog is--at a minimum--"a journal that is available on the web.The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger," according to the Dictionary.

What is Blogging?

Blogging offers the opportunity for people to tell the world what's on their minds, to share their passions, or to simply inform them of current events--no matter how uniquely focused. Or…to tell them what's going on in their business. A blog is a hybrid e- zine/newsletter that keeps you and your contacts in touch with each other.

Benefits
1.) Responsibility/Commitment - Daily Posts
Regular updates require children to be disciplined and responsible.

2.) Communication - Increased Communication with Friends and Relatives
Blogging or journaling gives children the opportunity to connect with relatives who might live some distance away, communicating important timely issues.

3.) Technology - Exposure to Internet Technologies
Children are growing into technology-laden world. Exposure to innovative Internet technology will help them with communication skills and résumé-building.

4.) Typing
Getting children acquainted with keyboards at a young age will help them become familiar with their layout and function, quickly making them proficient typists.

What would you think if I told you that you could develop a base of prospects that that would look forward to hearing from you? You can do this, and more, by starting a blog for the help www.feed-reader-links.com. Since the landmark CANN-SPAM legislation, I think the spam situation has gotten worse instead of better. I continue to get more new spam than I can effectively filter, and the "marketing gurus" who send me newsletters from time to time, are bemoaning the fact that as much as 46% of their outgoing e-mail is never getting to its intended recipients because of spam filters; either on desktops, or at ISPs.

Worse, in an effort to get through the filters and into your inbox, those same gurus are reduced to sending their messages using words like `s*p*a*m', or `free', or `guar*an*teed'. For me, this is a turn- off that makes their messages look unprofessional, and in my eyes, costs them credibility. And here is where a blog begins to solve those problems.

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